Blackbird in the Dead of Night
by DragonRider122
Summary: Three poems/drabbles featuring Barbara and Helena as they struggle to put their lives back together. Rated for language.
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: Birds of Prey ain't mine.**

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Rip, crush, tear, burn, fall, break …..stop.

I live with an English major and yet I never knew that so many words could describe the thing I want to do more than anything right now.

I am the daughter of water and fire and yet all I want to do is fall apart when I should be canceling myself out.

That doesn't even make sense. Am I high?

Probably.

I don't remember anything right now other than the fact that I'm angry enough to spill an ocean of blood, my own included, and in enough pain that I want to curl up and scream until my vocal cords shatter into a million tiny pieces that pierce my throat like slivers of glass.

Yeah, I'm probably high. Oh well, fuck it, it's not like she'd give a damn.

That's not true.

She cares, cares too much about the raging animal I have become, about how I am searching for something, anything, to make me numb and make me _forget._

She's all that's keeping me alive, but the lifeline gets more frayed every day and I know it's only a matter of time until I just snap and plummet over the edge as she screams my name.

I wonder if she would still need me without that bullet in her spine.

Probably not; she's always been strong, never needing anything but her own strength to keep her going, except if that's gone now and I'm all she has, what does that make me?

Her strength?

Ha, that's a good one.

Like I could keep her alive when every day I wrestle with the impulse to take all of her sleeping pills and shove them down my throat.

I wonder if she feels the same.

The thought terrifies me.

I need her.

She knows that.

What if it's not enough?

God, don't leave me.


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: Birds of Prey ain't mine.**

* * *

We are both creatures of the night

But she blazes with the light of the sun, standing tall against the darkness

While I don't know whether to fight it or embrace it as it slithers around me with cold, whispering coils, promising me destruction and freedom.

Right now I am a chained wolf, muzzled and with my claws ripped out

Leaving bloody pools of pain on the ground that nobody seems to notice.

I would say I'm trapped, but does it count when the bars you throw yourself in vain against are the ones that make up your own life?

I don't know. I don't care.

Right now I'm wandering through my cage, angry, agonizing and adrift,

When I see her.

She is fallen, her wings clipped and shattered, the beautiful voice silenced, and suddenly it doesn't matter that I'm wounded and raging because she is in enough pain for both of us.

Now I'm glad that I don't have claws, because if I did, I couldn't kneel and pick her up from the unfeeling ground without them getting in the way.

I am a demon, desperately seeking a way back to the pit from whence I came, but she is an angel who simply took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in this hell we call life. It's too late for me, but she doesn't deserve this.

If it's the last thing I do, I will make sure she flies again.

The night can have me, but I will never, ever allow it to take her.

She deserves better.


	3. Chapter 3

**DISCLAIMER: Birds of Prey ain't mine.**

* * *

Is it enough?

I sit here in the chair that I now hate more than I have ever hated anything or anyone and I wonder if I can keep her from destroying herself.

I've always loved her dark blue eyes; so full of life, of light and love and spirit, but lately all I've seen in them is what I see in my own every time I look in a mirror.

Haunting, aching agony, anger at a world that took everything from her and a burning desire to spend her rage until she lies exhausted on the ground hovering between life and death and hoping that the latter wins.

Unlike her, I'm in no position to carry out my desire, but she can and will and that is what terrifies me more than anything else.

I never dreamed that she could carry so much rage and hatred within her, and if it finds its way out then God help both of us, because I can barely go to the fucking toilet without help, let alone stop a teenager hellbent on destroying herself no matter what it takes.

God, Selina, I'm so sorry.

I made that promise to you because I knew I could protect Helena from herself, but neither of us ever dreamed that a tiny metal slug would change everything I ever knew.

We never thought I'd have to go through with it, either. It was a precaution, a prudent measure given the world of monsters and magic in which we live, but it's the kind of thing that you do thinking that it just might be a good idea and now that it's taken care of you can go on with your life and sleep a bit easier at night.

The pain meds must be kicking in. I never ramble.

Where are you, Helena?

It's midnight and you're not here.

God, I hate when you do this.

I sit here and worry and that's all I can do because it isn't like I can just hop up and go look for you anymore.

Don't you know I need you?

I know that you think I only need you because of this chair, but that's not true.

I have needed you in my life from the day we met.

This sounds strange coming from a woman nearly a decade your senior, but you are my best friend.

Come home, Helena.

Whatever happens, we face it together.

That's a promise.


End file.
